MONTREAL – It was an emotional moment Monday as Julie Snyder announced she is abandoning her long career in TV production because her company has been stripped of provincial tax credits.

“It’s very hard,” she said, fighting tears. “It’s my baby. It’s like you are giving your baby to someone else.”

President of Productions J, a factory of hit Quebec shows, Snyder said she is being punished “solely because of my marital status.” Her long-time partner is Pierre Karl Péladeau, controlling shareholder of the Quebecor media empire and recently elected leader of the Parti Québécois.

“I note today that aid for independent production, essential in producing works of quality, is granted by Quebec according to what goes on in my bedroom,” she said in a prepared statement.

The situation remains muddy, and even Snyder was at a loss to explain what comes next for her company and the shows it produces. She said she will step down as president of Productions J, but her news release said she will remain with the company, which also produces music recordings and concerts.

Dario Ayala/PostmediaTelevision host and producer Julie Snyder, left, announces that she is "abandoning" television production during a press conference at the Productions J offices in Montreal on Monday, June 29, 2015.

Her predicament illustrates how the 2014 arrival of Péladeau on the political scene has created a hornet’s nest of potential conflict.

Productions J lost its eligibility for the tax credits, which can cover up to 20% of production costs of an eligible program, in the Liberal government’s March budget. But Snyder’s company had only become eligible for them a year earlier in one of the PQ government’s last acts before it went down to defeat.

The rules as they now stand say that an independent producer cannot benefit from the credits if she is “related” to a broadcaster and sells more than half her productions to that broadcaster. As Péladeau’s common-law spouse – the couple is marrying in August – Snyder is considered related, and almost her entire production airs on Quebecor’s TVA network.

Andrée-Lyne Hallé, press attaché to Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao, said the rules were restored in the March budget “to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest” if an independent producer could be seen to have an advantage because of a familial relationship with a broadcaster.

Valerian Mazataud for the National PostPierre-Karl Péladeau and Julie Snyder at the St-Jean- Baptiste Day parade in Montreal, June 24, 2015.

“It was not a political decision,” she said. Premier Philippe Couillard told reporters Monday it was a matter of correcting an “anomaly” created by the previous government. “The tax credits were essentially modified for a single company, compared to other independent producers, who do not have the benefit of being related to a broadcaster,” he said.

Snyder refrained from calling the tax change a political attack, but said she has suffered “a great injustice” and her supporters decried it as sexist. Blogger Léa Clermont-Dion said Snyder was a victim of “retrograde” thinking. “How is that Julie Snyder’s status as a spouse obliges her to divest herself of the business she built and led with success?” she asked.

She would not have been placed in the situation if Péladeau heeded the frequent warnings that politics and media ownership do not mix.

Péladeau has rejected any suggestion that he should get rid of his Quebecor shares. He has promised to place his holdings in a blind trust, but with orders not to sell the shares of Quebecor, the company started by his late father.

The opposition leader did not comment Monday on his spouse’s dramatic announcement, and really, how could he without being in an obvious conflict? The situation is a taste of what is in store as Quebec politics enter the uncharted territory of having a media mogul vying to lead the province.

“It seems that I am not as independent as I believed I was,” Snyder said Monday. And for that she can thank her fiancé as well as the taxman.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/graeme-hamilton-peladeau-learns-politics-and-media-ownership-dont-mix-as-wife-quits-tv-production/feed0]]>stdJulie-SnyderDario Ayala/PostmediaValerian Mazataud for the National PostBarred from meeting, advocate awarded $20,000, and Tuesday’s other reasons to fear for humanityhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barred-from-meeting-advocate-awarded-20000-and-tuesdays-other-reasons-to-fear-for-humanity
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1. Cash and dash victim may not survive

Calgary HeraldTwo suspects in Calgary "cash and dash"

A woman working in a Calgary gas station tried to stop two clowns in a truck from taking off without paying. Instead the truck ran her over and now she’s in hospital and unlikely to live. The woman is a chemical engineer from Iran who moved here a year ago (and was working in a gas station); the cops have pictures of the two culprits, a couple of young dudes who think they’re cowboys and have been on a spree lately.

2. Barred from meeting, advocate awarded $20,000

Ottawa has to pay an aboriginal child welfare advocate $20,000 because an aide to then aboriginal affairs minister Chuck Strahl wouldn’t let her attend a meeting, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal says. Cindy Blackstock said she was trying to attend a meeting with the chiefs of Ontario in Gatineau but was singled out for exclusion. She wasn’t popular in Ottawa at the tme because she’d been involved a battle with the federal government over aboriginal child welfare. The tribunal ordered the money paid for “pain and suffering.”

3. Silent Stephen meets Friendly Francis

If Stephen Harper is smart, the first thing he’ll do when he meets the Pope on Thursday is suggest he apologize to Canada’s aboriginals over the residential schools. Why not? It will only take a second, the Pope might say yes (he seems like a reasonable guy), and then maybe people will shut up about Harper being “silent“. (Harper actually met with the authors of the Truth and Reconciliation report a week ago, right after it was released, and I presume they had a long talk, rather than staring at one another silently).

4. That was a quick dawning

The dawning of a new separatist age will have to wait a while, as the Peladeau effect seems to have some trouble getting out of bed. The Liberal government in Quebec won both ridings up for grab in by-elections on Monday, including one in Quebec City where the popular Coalition Avenir Québec member quit to run for the federal Tories. The PQ share of the vote did go up marginally, but it appears Quebecers have yet to realize that the party’s selection of Pierre Karl Peladeau as its leader signals a rebirth of separatist fervor. Judging by Pierre Karl’s usual reaction to failure, they’ll be scraping off the ceiling for the next couple of days.

5. Canadians demand: ‘Make us pay more!’

Fotolia

Forum Research has done a poll and discovered that Canadians are dying to have Ottawa make them contribute more to the Canada Pension Plan. Seriously. Forum claims that 59 per cent of respondents favour increases, and only 25 per cent disagreed. Even Tories are dying to hand over more money (50%). But people want to pay more only if they’re forced to; if Ottawa were to make increased contributions voluntary, the poll says, people would be opposed. Because it’s only fun if Ottawa MAKES you pay. Whoo boy. Forum’s next shocker: Canadians say they’d prefer to eat dirt for breakfast, but only if it’s organic.

6. He let them keep the rubble though

Screen grab/YouTubeJack Warner: Gimme that cash. All of it! I want al-l-l-l-l-l the money

That paragon of virtue, Jack Warner, the Fifa vice-president, has been accused of stealing aid money to Haiti, the BBC reports.

In papers drawn up by US investigators and seen by the BBC, Warner is accused of diverting $750,000 in emergency funds donated by Fifa and the Korean Football Association intended for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Meanwhile, a film on the history of FIFA opened in the U.S. and took in $607 on its first weekend. That’s not a misprint. $607. (And Jack Warner would probably steal it if he could get his hands on it)

The worst fears of the struggling Coalition Avenir Québec materialized Monday evening as the party’s traditional vote in the Quebec City riding of Chauveau, held by the popular and charismatic Deltell for two terms, melted away in his absence.

Jacques Boissinot / Canadian PressGerard Deltell.

Deltell quit provincial politics in March to run federally for the Conservatives.

And it was the provincial Liberals who cashed in on the vacuum, reclaiming the riding it has not held in 10 years. The win was made sweeter because the Liberals, as predicted, easily held their fortress riding of Jean-Talon, also in the Quebec City region. Sébastien Proulx will be the new MNA for that riding.

But even if the Parti Québécois didn’t win, it did manage to increase its share of the vote, especially in Jean-Talon where it went from 22.48 per cent to 28.97.

The Parti Québécois was hoping for a “PKP effect,” given the arrival of its new leader Pierre Karl Péladeau, but it was not enough to change the voting patterns of the PQ-averse people of Quebec City.

Jacques Boissinot / Canadian PressCAQ Leader Francois Legault, right, looks down as he speaks to his candidate Jocelyne Cazin, who was defeated in a byelection in Chauveau on Monday.

But the startling news was the collapse of the CAQ vote in Chauveau, which leaves leader François Legault on the defensive as the political season nears the end for summer.

Graham Hughes for National PostPQ Leader Pierre Karl Peladeau.

Arriving for the CAQ’s election wake, the loss showed on his face and could be heard in his choking voice.

“It’s true the people of Chauveau lost someone they loved in Gérard Deltell,” Legault said as CAQ members sipped beer in plastic cups, the magnitude of the loss becoming clear. “We tried to replace him with someone who was as exceptional. It’s not because we didn’t try.”

He vowed to keep trying but said the CAQ was also victim of a combination of the Péladeau effect plus some last minute scare mongering by the Liberals who harkened back to Legault’s days as a PQ cabinet minister.

CAQ party insiders were saying the race would be close in Chauveau but with all polls reporting the CAQ’s share had crashed by 19 percentage points, from 53.41 per cent in 2014 to 33.57 per cent.

The Liberal vote, on the other hand, soared from 29.91 per cent in 2014 to 41.32 per cent, an increase of 11 points.

The results mean CAQ candidate Jocelyne Cazin fails to transform herself from journalist to politician. The new Liberal MNA in Chauveau will be Véronyque Tremblay, also a former journalist, who won by 1,938 votes when the counting was done.

It was a well known fact that many voters in Chauveau, regardless of their party preferences, voted for the easy-going political natural Deltell above all.

But when he left so did his organization, running over to the Liberals.

Related

As the elections were called, the standings in the legislature were Liberals 69, PQ 30, CAQ 21 and Québec solidaire 3.

While the votes will not change the balance of power, they were seen as political tests on several levels. For the Liberals, they came as a hint of voter opinion toward their austerity agenda.

All three big party leaders threw themselves into the race with gusto, with Péladeau even skipping a few question periods in the legislature to campaign.

Adding another wild card to the campaign, Péladeau’s companion, Julie Snyder, a popular television producer and host, dove into the race in Chauveau as well and seemed to be everywhere, shaking hands.

In some restaurants she was mistaken for the candidate, appeared to overshadow the man actually on the ballot, Sébastien Couture.

But the CAQ’s campaign was a roller-coaster of one problem after another. Cazin was seen as a parachuted candidate because she had been living in the Montreal area. She had trouble with the geography. And an errant tweet, apparently about Snyder, that she blamed on her account being hacked.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/parti-quebecois-doesnt-get-the-pkp-effect-it-hoped-for-as-liberals-win-two-quebec-byelections/feed0stdVeronique Tremblay, Philippe Couillard,Jacques Boissinot / Canadian PressJacques Boissinot / Canadian PressGraham Hughes for National PostNational Post View: PKP can run his family firm, or he can try to become premier of Quebec. One or the otherhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-view-pkp-can-run-his-family-firm-or-he-can-try-to-become-premier-of-quebec-one-or-the-other
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The usual route followed by too many political leaders is to present themselves as humble servants of the people, progressing with time through various levels of self-regard until, after too long in office, they reach a level of arrogance that succeeds in repelling voters. Pierre Karl Péladeau, a man in a hurry, is skipping the opening stages.

Péladeau has only been leader of the Parti Québécois for three weeks but is already making clear he believes rules as they apply to lesser folk don’t necessarily apply to him. In a confrontation with Claude Bisson, the Quebec legislature’s legal counsel, he declared he no longer has time for Bisson, whose job includes advising members of the legislature on conflicts of interest.

“I will not consult him,” Péladeau fumed after his party launched a vociferous attack on Bisson, former chief justice of both the Quebec court and the Quebec Court of Appeal. “Is that clear? I can say it eight times, 10, 12, as many as you wish.”

Related

The subject of his fury was once again his interest in Quebecor Inc., the media and telecom giant in which he remains the largest shareholder. The same issue has trailed Péladeau since he first entered elected politics a year ago, and has only grown more fraught since he was chosen as PQ leader. The conflict of interest between his corporate holdings and his political position is self-evident – Quebecor is the province’s dominant media entity, with 40% of the market, and has major holdings in television, newspapers, cable and wireless industries. Péladeau has stepped down from his management positions and pledged to put his holdings in a blind trust, but with the stipulation the shares can’t be sold.

Bisson pointed out the obvious, that a trust that comes with a no-sale provision isn’t blind at all. Should Péladeau become premier, he said, his plan would be illegal.

That set off the PQ, which accused Bisson of being a stooge of the Liberal government, and of targeting Péladeau. “We’re not dummies,” said PQ house leader Stéphane Bedard in accusing Bisson of picking on Péladeau.

Such defensive outbursts have already become common in Péladeau’s short time as leader. He charged the Liberals with harassing him after they noted that Videotron, a Quebecor subsidiary, charges overdue customers 19.5 per cent in interest, considerably more than charged by Hydro-Quebec, a PQ target. Soon after, the government received a letter from Quebecor chief executive Pierre Dion asking that the firm be left out of political debates, which Liberal House Leader Jean-Marc Fournier held up as yet more evidence that “there is no separation at all between Péladeau and Quebecor.”

On Wednesday, the Coalition Avenir Québec released documents showing Quebecor has 16 lobbyists in the government’s registry, while subsidiaries Vidéotron has 45 and TVA has 16. Should he become premier, Péladeau would thus have more than 70 of his own lobbyists lobbying him for favours to his firm.

That Péladeau nonetheless persists in defending his position underlines the extent of his sense of privilege. In March a PQ colleague stooped so low as to suggest Bisson might be motivated by resentment that his son was once fired from a Péladeau-owned newspaper.

Péladeau maintains the government is pursuing a partisan vendetta against him. He may be correct in assuming the Liberals’ motives aren’t wholly objective. But he has only himself to blame for providing them with such rich material, and so fervently attempting to defend the indefensible. Péladeau can run his family firm, or he can try to become premier of Quebec. If he chooses the first, he is unqualified for the second.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-view-pkp-can-run-his-family-firm-or-he-can-try-to-become-premier-of-quebec-one-or-the-other/feed0stdpkp-1fbPKP says Liberals harassing him by mentioning 19 per cent interest rate his cable company charges on late billshttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/pkp-says-liberals-harassing-him-by-mentioning-19-per-cent-interest-rate-his-cable-company-charges-on-late-bills
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Parti Québécois Leader Pierre Karl Péladeau accused the Liberals of harassment and intimidation on Wednesday for alluding to the interest rates his cable company charges tardy customers.

The debate was triggered by PQ energy critic Bernard Drainville’s comment in the national assembly that the province’s hydro utility is usuriously charging people rates of 14.4 per cent for late payments.

Hydro-Québec acts like “Shylock” in charging customers the 14.4-per-cent rate, Drainville said in a reference to the moneylending character in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

The election of Pierre-Karl Péladeau as leader of the Parti Québécois has been accompanied by the traditional bump in the public opinion polls. Many commentators have suggested that much of his appeal to the PQ — and the Quebec electorate in generally — is that Péladeau’s success in the business world endows him and the PQ with credibility on economics-related files. This is not unique to Péladeau, of course, and it sometimes works the other way. For example, critics are quick to point out that the new Alberta government is short of ministers with business experience. It appears to be an article of faith in political punditry that success in business confers special expertise in economics.

Why this should be so is a bit of a mystery, at least to me. One explanation could be that to a casual listener, economists and industry leaders use many of the same words: “markets,” “profits,” “private enterprise” and so forth. Another could be the halo effect: someone who performs well in one field is assumed to have special talents in another. But it’s more likely that people are confused about the skill sets involved. Understanding how to succeed in business is not the same as understanding how to evaluate or conduct economic policy. And, it should be stressed, vice versa: economists generally have little in the way of special insight into how a successful firm should be run. Neither sort of expertise is better, or inherently more difficult to learn; they’re just different.

Related

Let’s start with markets. Economists and business leaders put a lot of stress on the importance of markets, but often for very different reasons. Economists look at markets as mechanisms for improving consumers’ welfare, but the key feature is that the markets must be competitive. Competitive forces oblige suppliers to offer consumers the widest variety at the lowest price. Indeed, competitiveness is usually more important than whether or not the suppliers are privately or publicly owned. For an economist, it is better to have a publicly owned supplier operating in a competitive market (such things have been known to exist; an example is Air Canada during the 1980s, after deregulation and before privatization) than a privately owned monopolist.

The world of business sees things in almost the opposite way. As far as firms are concerned, markets are useful as a tool for generating sales revenues. But they are far less keen on the idea of competition. As Adam Smith noted in one of the more famous passages from The Wealth of Nations, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Given a choice between scratching out a living in a competitive market or pocketing monopoly profits, firms generally opt for the latter. Even though they frequently make use of the language of free markets, business groups are best seen as pro-business, not pro-market.

Then there’s the temptation of taking a strategy that works for a firm or for an industry and generalizing it to the economy as a whole. Feedback effects — both positive and negative — that may be of little or no consequence for a firm are often much more important for the economy as a whole.

Take the example of a sector that is expanding rapidly. It makes sense for a growing industry to focus on increasing its exports and attracting capital from foreign capital markets to finance its development (think of the Canadian oil industry during the recent boom).

Few people make their mark in business by being passive: successful entrepreneurs are much more likely to take a hands-on approach to the problem at hand

But this strategy of increasing exports while simultaneously attracting a larger inflow of capital cannot be applied to the economy as a whole. This isn’t a conclusion taken from economic theory; it comes from one of the basic national accounts identities: an economy-wide increase in net exports must be offset by an economy-wide decrease in capital inflows. This strategy may be appropriate for one sector, but it is literally impossible to apply to the economy as a whole.

Finally, there’s the whole question of personality. Few people make their mark in business by being passive: successful entrepreneurs are much more likely to take a hands-on approach to the problem at hand. The instinct of a successful manager placed in charge of a sluggish economy may well be to try to restructure it in the same way that one would reorganize a failing company: identify its strengths and focus on what it does best. Just like a central planner.

Obviously, this approach is not suited for a market economy. When it comes to the allocation of labour and capital, economic policy is essentially a matter of establishing a level playing field, fixing the occasional market failure and letting market forces work. Investment and employment decisions should be driven by price signals and not the will of whoever is running the government.

This isn’t to say that a CEO is incapable of understanding or implementing sound economic policy: people can learn and adapt as they change careers. But a successful career in business is not as reliable an indicator of economic policy acumen as people seem to think.

National Post readers answer the question: “What does Pierre Karl Péladeau’s win say about the state of separatism in Quebec?”

No saviour

Pierre Karl Péladeau is not the businessman dynamo who will propel Quebec economically towards separatism. He did not work his way up through Quebecor ranks; his father parachuted him into a senior position in acquisitions and business development. He cobbled together an international printing empire, Quebecor World, which went bankrupt in 2008. Acquiring Sun Media Corporation in 1998, he subsequently built an English-language newspaper chain. Originally purchased for almost $1 billion, they were recently sold for $316 million. Peladeau lacks the foresight and vision necessary for the sustainable economic and social prosperity essential for Quebec independence.A. Lawrence Healey, Lachine, Que.

As a former Quebecer, I can say that the majority of Quebecers are a resilient lot, so PKP’s win will mean little for the state of separatism. Who would aspire to be the leader of a party in its death throes? Quebecers will watch as another “saviour” shoots himself in the foot — repeatedly. PKP is simply a bombastic bully in an expensive suit. He does not pose a threat to anyone, but he is certainly his own worst enemy.Mary Ann Hocquard, King, Ont.

The impact of Pierre Karl Péladeau being elected the leader of the PQ essentially comes down to this: there are people who perceive they are victims and they want others to believe them about this. Plus, they want the upper hand in dealing with this perception.David W. Lincoln, Edmonton.

Pierre Karl Péladeau, a.k.a., PKP, has led a charmed life: inherited a great business, been elected head of the Parti Québécois and dreams of being president of a new country in 2018. He has changed his spots — once a right-wing business titan and now a left-wing dreamer. Fortunately, Quebecers can see this glory-seeker for what he is, an opportunist ready to pander to hidden fantasies of dreamers of great wealth at the expense of the workers. Quebecers are realists. They prefer life as it now is: little turmoil, improvements in employment, transfer payments on time and prospects of free education and daycare.Madeleine Wannop Ross Salter, Stoney Creek, Ont.

No rain

Sounds like a broken record: so 1960s, so 1960s, so 1960s, so 1960s, so 1960s, …Fraser Petrick, Kingston, Ont.

No meaning

What does Pierre Karl Péladeau’s win say about the state of separatism in Quebec? Nothing.Brian Summers, Richmond, B.C.

No convincing

Quebec separatists are stuck between a dream and reality. They cannot convince enough Quebecois that they would be better off as an independent state and they cannot convince the rest of Canada that they should still receive all the benefits of Canada if they separate. There is not another country in the world that would tolerate any group that wanted to break up their country. Quebec currently has the best of all worlds: an almost sovereign state with all the benefits of a Canadian province.William Bedford, Newmarket, Ont.

No surrender

Choosing Pierre Karl Péladeau as leader by the Parti Québécois states that the separatists are not giving up and intend to achieve their goal using any means they can get away with. Péladeau appears quite willing to stoop to questionable levels of honesty and integrity if it will hoodwink the electorate. The separatists have good reason to be optimistic that such a leader may be successful, as Americans have elected and re-elected an arguably incompetent and mendacious president and Ontarians elected a premier associated with outright corruption and of questionable honesty and integrity.Harvey Kaplan, Thornhill, Ont.

René Lévesque once uttered the haunting words: “Independence is in the refrigerator but not in the freezer.” While, after the decisive defeat of Pauline Marois’ PQ one year ago, the newly elected leader of the Parti Québécois, Pierre Karl Péladeau, may be the only person in Quebec willing to talk seriously about sovereignty, history keeps cautioning us that the always-looming prospect of Quebec independence may have yet again been relegated to the refrigerator for a while, but not ousted to the freezer.Edward Bopp, Tsawwassen, B.C.

Pierre Karl Péladeau’s coronation as leader of the PQ has appeared to many as the death knell for separatism. Do not, however, underestimate this man. He plays to win and will try to move the party further to the right. A great deal will hinge upon how the Quebec Liberals handle the economy in the next couple of years. Separatism never dies and with this publishing magnate, it will have another resurgence.Stephen Flanagan, Ottawa.

No future

Pierre Karl Péladeau is merely the latest, and hopefully the last, in the line of Quebec’s cheap political opportunists desperate for a personal legacy. These self-serving charlatans sow seeds of division and discontent by fuelling paranoia and manufacturing myths of offense and oppression, always ignorantly indifferent to the crippling consequences of their corrupt crusade. The time has come for the true reformation of Canada, one nation and one people from coast to coast with one law for all. Let us embrace the true reality of our times.Iain G. Foulds, Spruce Grove, Alta.

It says that the PQ is out of touch with reality. Separatism is, but the PQ doesn’t realize it. They haven’t woken up to the fact that young Quebecers are no longer interested in separation — they’re interested in jobs and in a more global view, rather than the narrow and restricting tunnel vision of separatism. The PQ has become a historical relic destined to live on only in the history books. It might be interesting to look back and muse about it, but separatism is now in the same sphere as the flat earth society.Douglas Cornish, Ottawa.

No substance

The old football term “Hail Mary pass” would be the best way to describe Pierre Karl Péladeau’s win and the hopes of Quebec’s separatists. Unlike the Hollywood movies where the pass connected and the team was victorious, Quebec is no Hollywood movie, and Péladeau is no star quarterback who will lead them to victory. Instead, team Péladeau will talk a good game, but with no substance and a long losing record, the separatist franchise will slink into the night, broken only by the odd outburst of bravado in rural Quebec, which will only be relevant to that last lonely audience.Jeff Spooner, Kinburn, Ont.

No change

This is tantamount to changing captains when the Titanic is heading for the iceberg — the iceberg being the next referendum on separation. Chances are that a referendum will not be held, because they have not reached “winning conditions,” as we have heard in the past. As former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has said: “If Canada is divisible, Quebec is divisible.” The more things change, the more they remain the same.Fred Perry, Surrey, B.C.

Provincial affairsAndré Pratte, writing for La Presse, rolls his eyes at Pierre Karl Péladeau’s plan to sell Quebecers on sovereignty — namely that if they “knew their history” they’d already be independent; and that (in PKP’s words) “many other countries are there to demonstrate that independence brought them wealth (the Baltics, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Norway”; or as PQ MNA Stéphane Bedard put it, that “the country of Quebec would be the 18th economic power in the world.”

Pratte asks: “Does Péladeau really think Quebec must leave Canada because Louis XV abandoned New France in 1763, or because an English earl wished for the assimilation of francophones 176 years ago?” Does he really think Estonia and Slovakia benefited more from independence per se than from the collapse of communism — or Norway (110 years ago!) more than from striking oil? And hang on: If Quebec is such a bloody great economic power, then what’s the problem?

The National Post’s Michael Den Tandt chips in with his own rhetorical question: “This eccentric 50-something billionaire, who has known only privilege and unquestioning obedience for most of his life, is to somehow transform a dwindling army of grizzled true believers into a mass movement capable of ending one country and launching another. Ah, really?”

Really.

In the Toronto Star, Rick Salutin recalls Kathleen Wynne running her election campaign on a bold promise of “new tolls or taxes … to expand public transit,” and then winning said election, and thus he cannot imagine “what has got into her” now that she’s selling off Hydro One instead. We understand his confusion, but it stems from his premise, not Wynne’s subsequent actions: she had long since binned her much-vaunted new “revenue tools” by the time the campaign rolled around.

Even setting aside the letter of the law, the Calgary Herald’s Don Braid thinks including NDP fundraising links in invitations to Rachel Notley’s swearing-in was a very unfortunate First Gaffe for a premier who “paints herself as the champion of reforming political donations and party financing.” No kidding. It’s pretty amazing, as Braid says, that an Alberta opposition party, of all political entities, having watched the Tories pull this kind of crap for 44 years, wouldn’t be hardwired not to repeat it.

‘Round OttawaTheGlobe and Mail’s Campbell Clark reports on a Vancouver lawyer’s court challenge to Stephen Harper’s I’m-not-naming-any-senators-‘cause-I-don’t-wanna game, which was always going to have to come to an end at some point — and let’s face it, it would be 110 per cent fitting if the courts forced Harper’s hand. That said, we’re amazed the PM seems willing to go to an election with so many vacancies. Indeed, Clark thinks all federal leaders should be coming clean about how they intend to appoint senators should they win power, including fantasy-baseball abolitionist Thomas Mulcair. Even if he were to pursue an abolition project, after all, he’d have to name some senators in the meantime.

The Star’s Tim Harper agrees with yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that an aboriginal man’s rights were not violated at his murder trial (we’re simplifying) because the jury, and the jury roll from which it was chosen, was not representative of the region’s aboriginal population. But there remain serious barriers to properly enumerating aboriginal potential jurors, and to convincing them to participate — not least the hugely disproportionate numbers of them disqualified by their criminal records, Harper notes.

The Globe’s editorialists think it is an insufficient anti-terrorism strategy to take away would-be ISIL volunteers’ passports and let them go on their merry way. And they’re right. If we thought police had actually done that in the case of the 10 young Quebecers intercepted at Dorval last weekend, we’d be quite worried. But we have a hunch they’re doing at least some follow-up.

When talking about unmuzzling government scientists, Andrew Leach and Michael Rennieargue it’s important to distinguish between scientists discussing their research (usually good) and scientists advocating policy (which it’s their job to do to the government, not to the public). “Don’t imagine the case of a respected, well-published researcher advocating for the position you believe to be correct,” they write in the Globe. “Imagine the opposite — an equally qualified and equally respected researcher advocating for something you loathe — because both would happen and both would skew the development of policy, reducing the objective role of scientific advice in the process to just another voice shouting across the table.”

New Parti Québécois leader Pierre Karl Péladeau called Canada an “imaginary country” this week, but Howard Leeson, a professor emeritus at the University of Regina and Saskatchewan’s former deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs, said it meets all the key criteria for what defines a country.

“You start out by whether it is legally a nation-state. It’s recognized as an international entity,” he said. “Do you have governments in control of their territories and not under challenge? Yes. Do you have political mechanisms by which change can be undertaken, generally referred to as democratic institutions? Yes. Is there a division of powers between the two sovereign entities — federal and provincial parliaments — and do they coordinate and are there democratic ways of changing them? Yes.”

The question was raised by Péladeau Wednesday. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard had accused him of living in a parallel world, and dismissed his plans for independence as being out of touch with reality. The newly minted PQ opposition leader shot back, telling reporters: “Listen, I think the imaginary country that the premier is talking about: it’s Canada.”

Garth Stevenson, a political science professor at Brock University, said Péladeau’s remarks are based on an assumption that Quebec is a cultural or sociological nation and that a “real” country can contain only one such nation. But, by our definition, a country can contain more than one nation, he said.

“Anglophones here and elsewhere tend to assume that any sovereign state which effectively controls its territory is a country. By that standard, Canada is a country, as is the United Kingdom, which contains more than one nation.”

He added: ‘‘I am convinced it is a real country, and a very good one.’’

In his remarks, Péladeau noted that Canada unilaterally repatriated the Constitution in 1982 without Quebec’s approval. “So, if there’s an imaginary country, it’s the one that the premier had so much hoped for and we know that it is an optical illusion … it’s the famous co-operative federalism,” Péladeau said.

His remarks are rooted in the two-nations theory and the belief that the repatriation of the constitution from the United Kingdom in 1982, over Quebec’s objections, amounted to a denial of the existence of the Quebec nation and that Canadian federalism entrenches the dominance of English-speaking Canada over Quebec, said Jean-François Gaudreaul-DesBiens, a law professor at the University of Montreal.

“Quite obviously, under such a view, the idea that a real country can exist even when there is no fusion between one single nation and the state is impossible to sustain,” he said.

But don’t forget, Leeson said, that Quebec chose not to sign the agreement to bring the constitution home. “You can’t have it both ways,” he said.

Further, the Supreme Court ruled that Quebec’s signature was not required. And most Quebecers themselves were not all that fussed over the patriation issue. “We know from polls taken at the time. We know it from the 1985 election when the PQ lost,” Leeson said.

Leeson ventured to say that Canada is probably more united today as a country than at any time since the Second World War.

“There are no huge questions of whether a particular part of the country is so dissatisfied that it would seek a political solution that would divide the country,” he said.

The wave of discontent in the West that saw the rise of the Reform Party back in the late 1980s and 1990s has subsided, for instance. And the fact there are three federalist parties vying in the next federal election — and the Bloc Québécois is off the radar — is “very healthy for the unity of Canada,” Leeson said.

Péladeau’s imaginary Canada is a “tough argument to make right now.”

Don’t forget also, Stevenson said, that when Lucien Bouchard was premier of Quebec, he once similarly called Canada “not a real country” — a remark for which he later apologized.

It’s tempting to ignore Pierre Karl Péladeau, plug our ears with cotton balls and chant “wawawa” until he stops talking. Because, after all, isn’t provocation the Parti Québécois’ game plan? Hasn’t it always been? And isn’t it always wise for patient, stolid Canada, the St. Bernard of nations, to hang back and let the separatists sputter away in splendid isolation until they burn themselves out, as they have done for oh, 40 years?

Well, yes. But honestly. Canada, imaginary? How does he figure? Péladeau said this in the heat of rhetorical combat, in response to Quebec Premier Phillippe Couillard’s assertion that separation is an imaginary solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Perhaps the new PQ leader was trying to be clever. If so, he didn’t quite manage it.

This comes from a leader who, if the legends are true — and they can’t all be true, so take this with a grain of salt — once fired an underling for wearing white socks with black shoes. Visionary, impulsive, tyrannical — these were just some of the descriptors attached to Péladeau during his tenure at the head of Sun Media, where I worked for a time. The man has dash. That’s not up for debate.

But for a Quebec separatist to cast Canada as “imaginary,” from the grand promontory of his bully pulpit within an intellectual edifice that is itself full of holes, is distinctly odd. It suggests a disregard for the facts that goes above and beyond the well-worn PQ standard.

The first fly in the ointment is the federal Clarity Act, which received royal assent on June 29, 2000, and is the law of the land. Section 2 (4) reads: “The government of Canada shall not enter into negotiations on the terms on which a province might cease to be a part of Canada unless the House of Commons determines, pursuant to this section, that there has been a clear expression of a will by a clear majority of the population of that province that the province cease to be a part of Canada.”

The Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that the effective dissolution of the country would require, first, a determination by the House of Commons that a clear majority of a given province had voted to separate, on a clear question; and second, a formal constitutional amendment. Again, from the act: “Such an amendment would perforce require negotiations in relation to secession involving at least the governments of all the provinces and the Government of Canada, and that those negotiations would be governed by the principles of federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and protection of minorities.”

Here’s what that means, put plainly: Separation is impossible. The only way it could happen practically would be by extra-legal means, that is to say a revolution, driven by mass movements in the streets, such as occurred in Egypt and elsewhere during the Arab Spring.

Even with that, the Island of Montreal, anglophone pockets in the Eastern Townships and big swaths of Quebec’s north, homeland of the Cree and the Inuit respectively, would likely opt to stick with Canada. Ottawa would be legally, morally and politically bound to protect its citizens. Therefore this would be a cataclysmic mess at best. Unless PKP has a magic gambit up his sleeve, one no previous PQ leader has happened upon, the dream of independence is unattainable.

Obstacle two? Quebecers understand obstacle one, which presumably is one reason why they voted en masse to reject the Parti Québécois and its charter of Quebec values, in last spring’s provincial election. The PQ was reduced to 30 seats and the scandal-plagued Liberals took 70. The charter was to be the lever that hoovered soft nationalists into the separatist camp and it failed, miserably.

Obstacle three, which is like a bell tolling: Young people, once the separatist movement’s soul, are not interested. In a CROP survey of Quebecers aged 18-24 taken less than a year ago, just under 70 per cent of respondents said they’d vote no in a referendum. And there’s obstacle four, not to be downplayed: Péladeau is notoriously mercurial. His notion of a town hall is a monologue. During his Sun Media days (he has since sold the newspaper chain to Postmedia) his tirades were the stuff of myth. Temperamentally, PKP may be ill-suited for modern politics, which occurs in a fishbowl.

At root, this is the separatist proposition: This eccentric fifty-something billionaire, who has known only privilege and unquestioning obedience for most of his life, is to somehow transform a dwindling army of grizzled true believers into a mass movement capable of ending one country and launching another. Ah, really?

Anything is possible, one supposes. But is it likely? In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s this seemed an urgent and real debate. In 2015, based on the overwhelming weight of evidence, it’s a vanity project. Imaginary is an apt word. But it applies to PKP’s quixotic quest, not the entirely real country he spurns.

A day after Premier Philippe Couillard attacked the sovereignty option being proposed by Pierre Karl Peladeau as an imaginary solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, the new Parti Quebecois leader fired back.

“Listen, I think the imaginary country that the premier is talking about: it’s Canada,” Peladeau told reporters in Quebec City.

He noted that Canada unilaterally repatriated the Constitution in 1982 without Quebec’s approval.

“So, if there’s an imaginary country, it’s the one that the premier had so much hoped for and we know that it is an optical illusion…it’s the famous co-operative federalism,” Peladeau concluded.

Related

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/gary-clement-on-quebec-politics/feed0galleryGary-ClementCouillard says Péladeau as PQ leader makes the next election about ‘the separation of Quebec and a referendum’http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/couillard-says-peladeau-as-pq-leader-makes-the-next-election-about-the-separation-of-quebec-and-a-referendum
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/couillard-says-peladeau-as-pq-leader-makes-the-next-election-about-the-separation-of-quebec-and-a-referendum#commentsTue, 19 May 2015 19:09:23 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=775559

Even if the arrival of Pierre Karl Péladeau has sparked a reported increase in the polls for the Parti Québécois, the party remains “light years,” away from the concerns of Quebecers, says Philippe Couillard.

On the same day as the newly elected Péladeau made his debut as the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, the Quebec premier had choice words about the PQ’s political agenda.

He said Péladeau himself has defined what the next election will be about: separation.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” Couillard said. “We already know the ballot box question will be the separation of Quebec and a referendum.

“We are here talking about true issues for Quebecers, real life issues. Economic development, good quality jobs, not imaginary solutions to imaginary problems.

“Quebecers are a happy prosperous people within Canada and they have thrived in Canada while asserting their identity.”

Couillard made the comments following an investment announcement for Quebec City Tuesday morning.

He came face-to-face with Péladeau for the first time on Tuesday afternoon.

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After winning the PQ leadership Friday with 57.6 per cent of the votes, defeating two other candidates, Péladeau spent the weekend huddled with advisers preparing for his new role.

His arrival got a boost from a new Léger poll done for Le Devoir and the Journal de Montréal.

The poll suggests the PQ would have obtained about 34 per cent of votes if an election had taken place last weekend. The results are six percentage points higher than during the last poll compiled by Léger on April 11.

The Liberals would hypothetically walk away with 32 per cent, a 5 point decrease since April.

The Coalition Avenir Québec holds 20 per cent of votes while Québec Solidaire has 10 per cent, according to the poll.

On Tuesday, CAQ leader François Legault dismissed the poll noting it’s normal for the PQ to go up given all the attention the party got.

“Honeymoons don’t last,” Legault told reporters. “At some point you have to get back to what you propose. We have to come back down to the real world.”

pauthier@montrealgazette.comTwitter.com/philipauthier

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/couillard-says-peladeau-as-pq-leader-makes-the-next-election-about-the-separation-of-quebec-and-a-referendum/feed1stdPhilippe Couillard, Pierre-Karl PeladeauWilliam Johnson: What can we expect from PKP’s future blitzkrieg ‘to make of Québec a country?’http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/william-johnson-what-can-we-expect-from-pkps-future-blitzkrieg-to-make-of-quebec-a-country
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/william-johnson-what-can-we-expect-from-pkps-future-blitzkrieg-to-make-of-quebec-a-country#commentsSat, 16 May 2015 02:32:27 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=773478

Never mind that his business career defined him as an extreme right winger, now leading a party congenitally committed to social democracy. Never mind that his management style showed him as an aggressive union-buster now taking over a party joined at the hip to Quebec’s powerful labour federations. What did it matter that he revealed himself during the leadership campaign as arrogant, impulsive, undiplomatic? Vive le Québec libre! Vive PKP!

Péladeau becomes the next leader of Quebec’s official opposition for one reason only: he shone among the candidates as the most committed to the single-minded pursuit of sovereignty. Why else would he leave the pinnacle of the business world to pick up a battered party? Besides, as the handsome celebrity controlling (from afar?) Quebec’s greatest communications empire, he seemed (with by his side media star Julie Snyder) singularly ordained to play the pied piper of Québecor, serenading Quebec into sovereignty’s Promised Land.

So what can we expect from PKP’s future blitzkrieg “to make of Québec a country?” As on most issues, his proposals for achieving independence remained largely undefined, except for the promise to make the pursuit of independence his constant top priority. He made no precise commitment on when he would trigger a referendum. He did promise to launch a “scientific” think-tank, the Institut québécois de recherche appliquée sur l’indépendance, devoted to demonstrating the advantages of a sovereign Quebec over the harms caused by Quebec’s inclusion in Canada. But this continues the constant Parti Québécois policy from its very founding to emphasize the why of independence rather than the how; to offer exhortations rather than true analysis, as though merely winning a referendum would provide a passport to the new country.

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“To have a country is more important than ever,” PKP says on his website. “A country doesn’t mean turning in on oneself. It’s a base for launching out towards the world. That is why, during the next elections [in 2018], I hope to get the mandate to realize concretely the independence of Quebec.”

Rather than lay out a program now for Quebec’s accession to independence, he projected it into the future by making two promises. First, to “engage in a dialogue with all the parties, political movements and organizations of civil society with the aim of working out the elements of a common strategy, and setting in motion an immediate and permanent campaign of the Parti Québécois and the Official [PQ] Opposition in favour of independence.” Brave words, with the substance undefined.

The second promise also puts off all specific steps to decisions taken in the future: “To define, at the conclusion of the research and reflection to be undertaken, and before the next general elections, the process aimed at leading Quebec to national independence.”

PKP, like the Parti Québécois, ignores the central issue in the real world: at what price can the PQ obtain the consent of the rest of Canada for Quebec’s secession?

So PKP totally avoids the central issue raised by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 1998 response to the reference on Quebec’s secession. The court ruled that there were two ways to attain independence: either by a successful revolution, or a negotiated amendment to the Constitution of Canada. A negotiated secession would require meeting four conditions: the test of democratic legitimacy (a clear answer to a clear question); the rule of law (abiding by the requirements of the Canadian constitution for its amendment); the principle of federalism (obtaining the consent of the other provinces); and recognizing the rights of minorities (in particular of the aboriginals).

The Québécois, practical people, would never knowingly engage in a revolution. So the only realistic means of secession is a negotiated amendment. But PKP, like the Parti Québécois, ignores the central issue in the real world: at what price can the PQ obtain the consent of the rest of Canada for Quebec’s secession? For example, would the PQ agree to exempt from secession the lands of the Inuit, the Cree and the Montagnais, who all voted in 1995 by 95 per cent or more against being part of Quebec’s secession? If so, Quebec would lose half its present territory. If not, the rest of Canada will consider secession illegitimate.

The problem is not how “Québec” could thrive after independence. The crucial problem is how to get there. What territory would remain under the jurisdiction of the new sovereign Quebec? The Supreme Court made clear that a seceding Quebec is as divisible as Canada is now — and in accordance with the very same principles. But PKP offers only silence on the issue.

Successful revolution or a negotiated amendment? There is no third alternative. That’s the central issue that no PQ leader, neither René Lévesque nor Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard, Bernard Landry, André Boisclair or Pauline Marois, has ever been willing to confront. Now PKP is proving as irresponsible as all his predecessors.

National Post

William Johnson is a Canadian academic, journalist and author of, among other books, Anglophobie: Made in Quebec andA Canadian Myth: Quebec, between Canada and the Illusion of Utopia.

MONTREAL – When Pierre Karl Péladeau last year raised his fist and declared his commitment to “make Quebec a country,” the gesture was seen as a miscue that scared voters away from the Parti Québécois in the spring election.

But the clenched fist was catnip to the separatist true believers who make up the PQ membership, and on Friday they elected the 53-year-old media magnate leader on the first ballot.

Disregarding warnings from within to be wary of a high-profile saviour, members voted 57.6% in favour of Péladeau during three days of Internet and telephone voting. Alexandre Cloutier, former intergovernmental affairs minister, was second with 29.2% and Martine Ouellet, former natural resources minister, was third with 13.2%.

Three other contenders — Jean-François Lisée, Bernard Drainville and Pierre Céré — had quit the race before the votes were cast, acknowledging they stood no chance against the Péladeau juggernaut.

While he is a fresh face in the PQ, Péladeau can hardly be seen to represent renewal. Running his campaign like the favourite he was, Péladeau offered little in the way of new ideas and instead fell back on the oldest belief in the separatist bible: independence will solve everything.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotParti Quebecois leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau, right, arrives with his family, from the left, Romy, Marie, his wife Julie Snyder and son Thomas, May 15, 2015 to hear the vote results in Quebec City.

In a speech just before the results were announced in Quebec City, Péladeau recalled his political debut to applause and some raised fists from the crowd. He drew a standing ovation when he spoke of meeting men and women across Quebec during the leadership campaign “who believe, more than ever, that Quebec has to become a country. … How fortunate. I think the same thing!”

Later, in his victory speech, Péladeau focused almost exclusively on independence and even reached out to anglophones to join the cause.

“I want all to be part of this great and legitimate objective,” he said in English, a language rarely heard at PQ meetings.

In the April 7, 2014 election, the PQ share of the popular vote fell to 25%, its lowest score since its first election in 1970. It was Péladeau’s dramatic arrival in the campaign that allowed the Liberals to play on fears of another sovereignty referendum. But Péladeau’s analysis was that voters wanted to hear more, not less, talk of independence.

“They told us: ‘Do your work,’ ” Péladeau said when he declared his candidacy for the leadership. “You want to achieve sovereignty? Explain to us why.”

Never mind that peddling sovereignty is what the PQ has been doing since its creation. Under Péladeau, Quebecers are in for even more explaining. Among the few concrete promises in his platform — it never mentions health care, aside from one vague reference to controlling expenses — is the creation of what he called an Institute of Scientific and Applied Research on Quebec Independence.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotParti Quebecois newly elected leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau speaks after the leadership vote results were announced in Quebec City Friday, May 15, 2015.

Despite the weighty name, the institute’s work will not be appearing in peer-reviewed journals anytime soon because these researchers are starting out with their findings spelled out for them. Their studies, Péladeau said, will “demonstrate the concrete advantages of independence, identify the losses caused by the Canadian regime [and] identify the federal jurisdictions that slow down or disadvantage Quebec in the federation … ”

Péladeau has not released his timetable for another referendum, but pressure from the membership will be high should the PQ win the next election in 2018. During the campaign, he said separatists have no time to waste. “We won’t have 25 years ahead of us to realize sovereignty,” he said in March. “With demographics, with immigration, it’s clear we lose a riding each year.”

Péladeau is in many ways a surprising choice to lead the party. Until his entry into politics, the former Quebecor chief executive was known as a hard-nosed capitalist. He showed no mercy to unions in his business empire and whose media outlets campaigned to expose Quebec’s shaky public finances.

Since he joined the left-leaning, union-friendly PQ, he has literally changed his tune. This week he spoke out in favour of locked-out car dealership mechanics, suggesting the government should intervene. He has accused the Liberals of taking “a chainsaw” to social programs as it balances the budget. And Maclean’s reported that at a campaign visit to a working-class tavern, he joined the crowd in singing the socialist anthem, L’internationale.

The area where he has proven completely inflexible is the one most likely to cause him immediate headaches as leader of the official opposition. He remains the controlling shareholder of Quebecor, the powerful media empire founded by his late father. He has said he will place his holdings in a “blind” trust if elected leader, but with instructions never to sell the Quebecor shares. The National Assembly has scheduled committee hearings on the issue this month.

Péladeau takes over a party in trouble. Its membership is reported to stand at just over 70,000 — half what it was during its last leadership race in 2005. The PQ struggles to connect with younger voters, who deserted them in the last election. And polls have shown no Péladeau bounce for the PQ during the campaign; a CROP poll last month showed support for a Péladeau-led PQ had dropped seven points since February and the party trailed the Liberals.

But members have concluded the untested Péladeau is their best hope. Before he quit and half-heartedly threw his support behind Péladeau, Drainville had warned members not to fall for the Péladeau mirage

Last September, Lisée said the race to replace Pauline Marois was the time for introspection. “The worst thing that could happen to the PQ now is a coronation,” he said. “We need a real debate, a real test of leadership.”

There was a vote but not much of a contest, and on Friday the PQ crowned King Pierre Karl.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/pierre-karl-peladeau-wins-pq-leadership-with-58-of-vote-on-first-ballot/feed2stdPKP-1THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotTHE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques BoissinotFull Pundit: If you say horrible things on live television, you might get fired. Why is this news?http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/full-pundit-if-you-say-horrible-things-on-live-television-you-might-get-fired-why-is-this-news
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/full-pundit-if-you-say-horrible-things-on-live-television-you-might-get-fired-why-is-this-news#commentsThu, 14 May 2015 16:29:24 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=772253

You’re an adult nowThe National Post’s Robyn Urback very patiently explains that once you’re a grown-up, it’s very difficult “to act like an utter cretin in public without facing professional repercussions. … Yell FHRITP all you want,” she says, “just don’t expect to be invited back to work the next day.”

Indeed. You can debate until you’re blue in the face whether FHRITP is inherently sexist — people shout it at male reporters as well — or whether it meets the threshold of criminal harassment. The fact is, someone walked up to a real, live woman on real, live television and yelled “f–k her right in the pu–y”; and then someone else called it “f–king hilarious” and suggested she consider herself lucky no one had stuck a “fu–king vibrator” in her ear. That’s insane behaviour. We would fire the living daylights out of those oiks.

The Toronto Sun’s editorialists agree. “Of course this is all now grist for the labour lawyers but the basic issue remains the same,” they say. But “what this whole incident showed was a disgusting lack of respect for [City TV reporter Shauna] Hunt.” And exhibiting a disgusting lack of respect where everyone can see you tends to get you fired. Welcome to adulthood, you idiots.

Postmedia’s Christie Blatchford is very uncomfortable with the Online Outrage Machine that took such pleasure in hunting down and demanding vengeance for the FHRITPers — but then, she thinks FHRITP is an “expression of the same evil phenomenon” that causes people to scream at reporters in the first place, namely “the triumph of the moron,” and she can’t muster any sympathy for the jackasses of the moment. “If men don’t want to see one of their own paying such a terrible price for behaving badly,” she suggests “they find their courage and save him from himself.” Good advice. Alternatively they could just walk away and not be friends with him anymore.

The debate debatePostmedia’s Andrew Coyne welcomes the apparent demise of the broadcasters’ consortium that has controlled leaders’ debates during federal election campaigns, now that the Conservatives have declined to participate (though we still think the other parties would have plenty of leverage if they agreed to the consortium debates). But he cannot vouchsafe the ensuing “riot of ad hoc negotiations, carried out simultaneously and in secret among and between each of the parties and a variety of media outlets, with one party, the Conservatives, holding the advantage of incumbency.”

“It is not beyond our ingenuity to come up with a fairer system, and better debates,” Coyne argues — “set[ting] the rules for the debates … years ahead of time, such that the parties would have no way of knowing who would be in power, or who was ahead or behind in the polls, or who had the most money.”

He’s right, of course. It is, however, beyond the parties’ preferences — unless you believe the Liberals would really surrender future debates to some kind of independent body, which Postmedia’s Stephen Maher thinks is “an excellent idea.” We would have many questions about this “independent body” — the consortium is an independent body, after all, and no one likes it. But for the record, we have no problem with the “ad hoc riot.”

Jaime Watt, writing in TheGlobe and Mail, casts this as a strategic triumph for Stephen Harper, inasmuch as the “new Tory-endorsed debate format … will feature spontaneous interchanges and end the time-controlled, subject-specific discussions that have prevailed,” which “gives much more control to the incumbent.” Thus he says Harper can “deliver his message live, but with much greater control.” Watt doesn’t say how he actually knows what the format is. But assuming he’s right, it doesn’t seem to us as hugely advantageous for Harper as he makes out.

The Senate’s apparent intention to let the Reform Act die on the order paper is enough to transplantKelly Blidook from the abolition-is-impossible-so-there’s-no-point-talking-about-it camp to the rage based burn-the-frigging-place-down camp. “Pass the bill or kill the Senate,” he writes in the Post.

Him?In Le Journal de Montréal, Richard Martineau likens Pierre Karl Péladeau’s impending leadership of the Parti Québécois to a hockey team pulling the goalie in a 3-3 game with two minutes left in the third period. We’re not totally sure we follow that, but his point is that the PQ is going all in on one last-ditch sovereignty effort, and he expects the fight to be extremely dirty.

The Star’s Chantal Hébert, however, sees “little in Péladeau’s leadership campaign to give Quebec’s federalists cause to quake in their boots or, for that matter, to justify the faith that he inspires in his followers.” Indeed, we see plenty of reasons to suspect this will be a spectacular misadventure.

Duly notedTerry Glavin, writing in the Post, argues Canada lost Alan Borovoy at a time when we desperately needed his level-headed, utterly non-partisan brand of civil libertarianism. The Ottawa Citizen’s editorialists agree. Fine pieces, both.

National Post
cselley@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/cselley

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/full-pundit-if-you-say-horrible-things-on-live-television-you-might-get-fired-why-is-this-news/feed0stdhecklerDon Macpherson: The Parti Quebecois turns to yesterday as its answer for tomorrowhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/don-macpherson-the-parti-quebecois-turns-to-yesterday-as-its-answer-for-tomorrow
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/don-macpherson-the-parti-quebecois-turns-to-yesterday-as-its-answer-for-tomorrow#commentsWed, 13 May 2015 14:53:06 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=770944

The Théâtre National, a 114-year-old former vaudeville hall on Ste-Catherine Street east, provided an ideal stage for the probable next leader of the Parti Québécois to reveal his backward-looking vision of Quebec.

At times, Pierre Karl Péladeau’s Montreal rally on Saturday afternoon, co-hosted by Julie Snyder, television personality and producer and Péladeau’s partner in life and now politics, verged on the Felliniesque.

At the back of the hall, under bright lights, a man competed against the clock to complete a painting of the Quebec flag before the end of the rally.

PQ members usually speak of the presence of minorities in Quebec as a problem. At Peladeau’s rally, that presence was simply ignored.

Other entertainment included a lawyer-turned-standup comic who donned a blond wig for what was announced as an imitation of Anne-Marie Dussault, a Radio-Canada television host, but which was otherwise unrecognizable.

And there was a startling, unsettling moment when Péladeau interrupted the long closing speech he was bellowing to break into a failed attempt at song with a couple of lines from political hip-hop group Loco Locass.

John Mahoney/PostmediaPierre Karl Péladeau's partner Julie Snyder .

“Libérez-nous des Libéraux, libérez-nous des Libéraux,” he moaned loudly and tunelessly. Introduced by 78-year-old Bernard Landry as “the hope” of the PQ, Péladeau sounded for that moment like a crazy person in the métro.

The song was released 11 years ago, so, like most of the rest of the rally, it was rooted in Quebec’s past.

Two of the singers who performed were stars of the cassette-tape era: Paul Piché, the 1994 Société Saint-Jean Baptiste de Montréal “Patriote de l’année,” and Marjo, whose political thinking has apparently evolved since she performed for the Queen on Parliament Hill on Canada Day five years ago.

There were readings, including a lengthy rant by Pierre Falardeau’s widow from a text by the late filmmaker. From beyond the grave, Falardeau insulted Quebecers who aren’t for independence as traitors, sellouts, cowards or fools, with Péladeau’s apparent approval. The audience laughed at Falardeau’s reference to “moron journalists,” which is not kind to Péladeau’s media employees.

There was a lot of yelling from the stage during the rally, some of it by an 81-year-old historian, Marcel Tessier, about 19th-century grievances of which he found Quebecers woefully ignorant. “If Quebecers knew their history,” he lamented, “Quebec would have been independent a long time ago.”

When Pierre Céré withdrew his leadership candidacy on Sunday, he credited himself with at least reversing the PQ’s “fallback on identity.” There was no evidence of that at the Péladeau rally the day before, however.

The theme of the rally had been established in the first musical number, by the youngest individual performer of the day, 38-year-old Alexandre Belliard. Introduced as a current favourite of Snyder and Péladeau, Belliard composes and sings songs based on the history of French Canada: souche-folk music.

The rally was held in Montreal in 2015, but did not reflect the cultural diversity of the city — or indeed of French Quebec, after nearly 40 years of integration under Bill 101, the language legislation venerated by Péladeau and his supporters.

There were a couple of token visible minorities among the several prominent Péladeau supporters heard in the videos that opened the rally. Over the next 2 1/2 hours, however, all the speakers and performers were old-stock French-Canadians.

Refreshingly, there was no pretend “inclusiveness” during the rally. In fact, with the notable exception of the speech by Bernard Drainville, recognizing Quebec’s ethnic diversity, there was no inclusiveness at all.

PQ members usually speak of the presence of minorities in Quebec as a problem. At this event, that presence was simply ignored.

It was a celebration exclusively of, by, and for those Quebecers who are like Péladeau, who proudly mentioned in his closing speech that his ancestor arrived in 1665. It celebrated the old Quebec that composes the party that this week will probably choose Péladeau to lead it.

Stranger things have happened than media mogul Pierre Karl Péladeau piloting the Parti Québécois to electoral victory and his province to independence. But not a great many things. PKP looks like a disaster in the making for the PQ, and nobody in the party seems willing or able to stop it from happening.

We have recently learned more about Péladeau’s now-legendary temper. According to Martin Patriquin of Maclean’s magazine, at a 2013 charity event, Péladeau met a rival media executive’s proffered handshake with fury, cursing and near violence. He reportedly lost his rag at former leadership rival Pierre Céré, who has referred to PKP as “Citizen Péladeau” — after Citizen Kane — and accused him of trying to “buy” the leadership. “You, mon tabarnac, I’m going to buy you,” Céré claims Péladeau said. “How much do you cost?”

“I have nothing to say about articles in Maclean’s,” Péladeau later told inquisitive reporters. “I have nothing to say about the pamphleteer named Martin Patriquin.” Well, that’s how it was translated.

Related

Le Soleil columnist Gilbert Lavoie recalls being treated to a vitriolic rant against all things related to Péladeau’s federalist media rivals at Power Corporation … at journalist Michel Vastel’s funeral. Péladeau stormed out of a leadership debate in Saguenay after he was booed, and had to be coaxed back inside to speak to reporters, Lavoie reported. And whatever animated Péladeau’s decision to heckle a Montreal band for not singing in French — temper? drink? whimsy, mixed with asininity? — does not speak well of his judgment.

In Tuesday’s Gazette, Don Macpherson reported on a very white, very long-in-the-tooth and very strange PKP rally in Montreal on Saturday where the entertainment included a reading of the work of the late sovereigntist filmmaker and (actual) pamphleteer Pierre Falardeau. The reading, by Falardeau’s widow, “insulted Quebecers who aren’t for independence as traitors, sellouts, cowards or fools, with Péladeau’s apparent approval,” Macpherson wrote. “The audience laughed at Falardeau’s reference to ‘moron journalists,’ which is not kind to Péladeau’s media employees.”

Oh, and speaking of those media employees: Citizen Péladeau remains the controlling shareholder of Quebecor, which owns roughly 40 per cent of Quebec’s media properties. Assuming he becomes party leader, he has promised to put those shares in a “blind trust” — with the explicit stipulation that the shares are not to be sold. It is staggering that someone in such a Berlusconian conflict of interest position is running away with the PQ leadership, facing only muted internal criticism. If a member of the Desmarais clan were running for the Liberal leadership in the same circumstances, Péquistes would be crimson with fury.

Put simply, Péladeau’s candidacy makes no earthly sense. He’s a union-busting plutocrat running for a social-democratic party. (Patriquin’s profile featured PKP singing the Internationale at a blue-collar tavern. By rights the universe should have opened up and swallowed him whole.) He’s a political neophyte, and by no means a prodigy. His fist-pump on behalf of separatism during last year’s campaign precisely correlated with the PQ’s collapse. And yet he’s feted by giddy Péquistes as the best hope for separatism-in-a-hurry.

If Péladeau’s PQ leadership unfolds as logic suggests it will, it will go down in history as one of Canadian politics’ greatest own goals. But then, stranger things have not happened, as well.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-view-citizen-peladeaus-strange-journey/feed1stdPierre-Karl PeladeauFull Pundit: How long until we forget about Omar Khadr?http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/full-pundit-how-long-until-we-forget-about-omar-khadr
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/full-pundit-how-long-until-we-forget-about-omar-khadr#commentsTue, 12 May 2015 16:56:13 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=770028

Bailed outThe Winnipeg Free Press’s editorialists deplore Omar Khadr’s mistreatment and welcome his release, and then for some reason see fit to diminish the Liberals’ responsibility for getting the ball rolling on his mistreatment. “The Paul Martin administration could at least claim it was caught up in the emotional aftermath of 9/11,” they say. “The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, however, had the benefit of time to make the right judgments.”

Yeah, see, that bird don’t fly. Here’s the government of notorious peacenik John Howard advocating for David Hicks’ release in 2005. And here’s notorious peacenik Tony Blair’s foreign secretary demanding Washington release four British Guantanamo detainees in 2003. Not that being a little verklempt would be a very good excuse for ignoring a citizen’s rights in any case.

The Toronto Star’s Thomas Walkom thinks “the government’s boilerplate response” when asked about Khadr — that he “pled guilty to very grave crimes”; that “Ottawa’s thoughts and prayers were with the victims” — “no longer … suffices” now that Khadr has been allowed to speak and came off as a reasonable human being. We’re not sure what consequences, if any, Walkom envisions the government suffering for this insufficiency.

Alain Dubuc of La Presse characterizes the government’s failed efforts to keep Khadr locked up as a “devastating defeat,” inasmuch as it “highlights the odious aspects of its conservatism, its ideological pettiness and its primitive conception of security.” He hopes the “rednecks delighted by [Harper’s] determination are outnumbered by democrats who are disgusted” by it, and that the Conservatives will thus fall victim to a “boomerang effect.” We see little indication people care that much.

In other news out of Ottawa, Postmedia’s Andrew Coyne considers it “a safe bet” that Michael Chong’s Reform Act “will fall just short of passing before the Senate closes up shop,” and that’ll be that. He thinks “this is disgraceful on any number of levels,” and he’s quite right — especially considering this is a bill about how the House of Commons conducts its own affairs, as he says. It is also, however, a welcome reminder that the House isn’t going to get better until MPs and their parties decide to make it better. They can’t outsource it to legislation. Coyne himself concedes the bill he’s lamenting was “at least a symbolic victory.” Which is to say, it was really no victory at all.

Elizabeth May’s biggest problem isn’t her crazy sweary dinner speech, Paul Wells of Maclean’s opines. Elizabeth May’s biggest problem is that her “Green Party, as a party, has wasted away until now it is basically a wizened life-support apparatus for May’s continued tenure as a member of Parliament.” Seriously. If we’re Green Party members, we’re wondering what the hell the point of all this is.

The National Post’s John Ivison doesn’t think May deserves to be able to laugh off the crazy sweary speech, however. She “has brought her whole party into disrepute, even if the charge is just poor judgment,” he argues. “This is a grown-up party and it should be measured against the standards by which its competition is judged.” Indeed, demanding equal treatment is one of May’s central messages.

Him?In a hilarious column in the Montreal Gazette, Don Macpherson reports from Pierre Karl Péladeau’s “Felliniesque” Saturday rally in Montreal, where among other things the Parti Québécois’ soon-to-be leader “interrupted the long closing speech he was bellowing to break into a failed attempt at song with a couple of lines from political hip-hop group Loco Locass.” He sounded “like a crazy person in the Métro,” Macpherson observes. Also, the song is 11 years old — which made it about the most modern thing in the room.

One of the performers, (per Macpherson) “star of the cassette-tape era” Paul Piché, writing in Le Devoir, explains why he is both a lefty and a proud supporter of the union-busting plutocrat they call PKP. Well, he tries to, anyway. Basically he thinks sovereignty is Job One, and that Péladeau has the best chance of uniting sovereigntists behind the same banner. Observed experience during the last election would rather suggest the opposite, surely.

Duly notedIn an interesting piece at National Newswatch, Charles Lammam and Milagros Palacios summarize their Fraser Institute study asking a very trenchant question: Why are there so many more firefighters than there used to be, when there are so many fewer fires than there used to be?

MONTREAL — Pierre Karl Péladeau’s temper was legendary during his years atop Quebecor Inc. In a 2001 interview with his own TVA network, he was caught off guard when, instead of softball questions, interviewer Paul Arcand pressed him on his fiery management style. “I’m talking about people in your companies. You terrorize them,” Arcand said. “That’s not my perception,” Péladeau replied.

But even longtime family friend and current Quebecor chairman Brian Mulroney, the former prime minister, acknowledged in 2006 that Péladeau “can get irritated like anyone else and explode from time to time.” A 1999 Forbes magazine profile headlined “Angry son” described Péladeau swearing at his executives in both official languages and “throwing an occasional chair across the room to drive his point home.”

With Parti Québécois members voting next week in a contest expected to propel the 53-year-old Péladeau into the party leadership, there are signs he did not leave the explosive temperament behind when he ran for office last year.

This week, two of his rivals for the leadership, Pierre Céré and Martine Ouellet, recounted experiencing Péladeau’s wrath. Mr. Céré said Péladeau berated him during a party meeting in February. “Fire was coming out of his head, his eyes, his ears, everywhere,” Céré told the Presse Canadienne this week. “He was really furious.”

The governing Liberals profess that Péladeau’s tantrums are a worrying sign of what is in store for Quebecers. “He attacks those who think like him. Imagine the Péladeau State for those who don’t think like him,” Liberal House Leader Jean-Marc Fournier said.

When Péladeau, who resigned as Quebecor CEO in 2013 but remains its controlling shareholder, entered politics, friends suggested that he had mellowed after hitting his fifties. “Five years ago, if he could settle something with a fight or without fighting, he would settle it with a fight. He was very combative,” filmmaker Claude Fournier, who considers Péladeau like a son, said last year. “He has changed a lot. He is much more flexible.”

It turns out that the transformation has not been a complete success. After 14 years of calling the shots at one of Quebec’s leading companies, he is having trouble adapting to an environment where a thick skin is essential.

It is remarkable that the former head of a media empire employing hundreds of journalists can become so prickly when facing questions from the press. At a news conference in March, he insisted he would only allow one question per reporter, and when some reporters tried to ask follow-ups, he refused to answer and looked like he was prepared to storm out. When La Presse’s veteran Quebec City correspondent, Denis Lessard, called Péladeau’s cellular phone seeking reaction for a story, he was “beside himself” with anger according to Lessard and complained on Twitter of harassment. He likewise accused La Presse of harassing his supporters when they contacted donors to his campaign.

John Kenney/Montreal GazettePierre Karl Péladeau at a 2007 news conference.

Péladeau is not the first politician to display a dislike for the media or a quick temper. What is unusual is how seemingly minor affronts can set him off. Céré, an activist for the unemployed who has never been elected to office, is a fringe candidate for the PQ leadership with no chance of winning. He admitted this week he might not even make it onto next week’s ballot because he has not been able to raise the $10,000 needed.

And yet when Céré suggested Péladeau was buying the leadership and warned of a conflict of interest if “Citizen Péladeau” remained controlling shareholder of Quebecor as leader, Péladeau yelled and swore at him in front of other party members. “Someone who is easily intimidated would have been very intimidated,” Céré told Presse Canadienne.

Ouellet, who is running a distant third in the leadership race according to polls, said Péladeau shouted at her after a debate in Trois-Rivières. She had asked during the debate whether Péladeau, who as CEO locked out employees of the Journal de Montréal for more than two years, supported changes to the labour code to protect workers. “He said, ‘Are you going to keep asking me questions about old legislation?’ ” Ouellet told reporters in Quebec City this week. “It was clear that he did not want to be asked questions.”

When Péladeau is angry, he does not let the setting get in the way of a good rant. Le Soleil columnist Gilbert Lavoie wrote this week of meeting Péladeau for the first time at the 2008 funeral of political writer Michel Vastel. After some brief small talk, Péladeau launched into a “vitriolic criticism” of Gesca, the company that at the time owned Le Soleil, and of its boss, Guy Crevier. “Surprised at his comments in a setting that called for contemplation and solidarity, I let him know that I was only a wage-earner at Le Soleil,” Lavoie recounted. “I advised him to settle his dispute with Crevier rather than going after employees.”

Last fall, at an official dinner for the German president, Péladeau was seated at the head table. La Presse’s Vincent Marissal reported that Péladeau “unceremoniously” yelled at a Liberal minister in attendance because the provincial government had refused to subsidize a TV program produced by his fiancée, Julie Snyder. “Slight discomfort around the table,” Marissal wrote.

At the final candidates’ debate Thursday in Montreal, Péladeau was greeted like a hero, drawing the loudest cheers and chants of “PKP!” He made a point of conspicuously applauding the opening remarks of all the other candidates and thanked them for the “courteous” campaign. He called the vote “the first step toward Quebec independence,” and said he needed a “clear and strong mandate” to make the step. With the withdrawal of Bernard Drainville last month, Péladeau appears headed to a first-ballot victory Friday.

He might not have long to wait before his patience is put to the test. It was announced this week that a National Assembly committee will hold hearings at the end of May to study whether Péladeau’s position as controlling shareholder of Quebec’s dominant media company places him in a conflict of interest. He has said he will put his holdings in a blind trust if elected leader, but with instructions not to sell his Quebecor holdings. The National Assembly’s legal adviser has said the proposed arrangement does not qualify as a blind trust.

On Friday, Péladeau told RDI that the committee hearings are a “political operation” on the part of his adversaries, in particular Premier Philippe Couillard. He scoffed at Couillard’s claim that the hearings are routine parliamentary business. “Seriously, is there anyone who is going to believe the premier, who systematically lies to the population?” Péladeau asked.